--- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Chris Fynn" <cfynn@...> wrote:

>
> --- In qalam@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham" <richard@> wrote:

> > The splitting of an onset is somewhat unusual, but again it relates
> > to the widespread principle of making spelling morpheme-based rather
> > than purely phonetic. The consonants that might be prefixes are
> > therefore written in a separate akshara. The writing system for
> > Tibetan is kept slightly simpler by making this rule a spelling rule
> > that is independent of the actual morphemic structure of the word.
> > There may be a similar reason for one consonant per akhsara rule for
> > the consonants following the vowel. For example, the past tense form
> > _bsgrubs_ is written <b.sgru.b.s'>, compared to the corresponding
> > present tense form _sgrub_ <sgru.b'>.

> If Tibetan were purely phonetic it would be almost unreadable. Almost
> every Tibetan word has two or three homonyms - and frequently there
> are as many as ten or twelve.

There is an alternative, more prosaic explanation for the splitting of
onsets. Matisoff ("Handbook of Proto-Tibeto-Burman: System and
Philosophy of Sino-Tibetan Reconstruction" (October 1, 2003). UC
Publications in Linguistics. Paper vol_135.
http://repositories.cdlib.org/ucpress/ucpl/vol_135 , p97)
suggests that when Tibetan was first written, (some) prefixes were
followed by schwa, in which case what looks like a morphemic
decomposition would be entirely in accord with the usual principles of
Brahmic writing!

Richard.